


Scopaesthesia

by MossGreen_of_Teeth



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:14:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MossGreen_of_Teeth/pseuds/MossGreen_of_Teeth
Summary: It came in the flood when the hills got wetWhen the wooden-boxes of sinners’ debtRose from the ground to plague besetThe smell!The sound!Of rotting kinCalled out of hiding—in a din,The hungry driven mad with sinIt had turnedThe creature who,to be sated, it has yearnedThey scream!“The Oder of Decay”Always returnedNight after dayDamn that rain that soaked the hill!Who caused the blood of death to spillWho didn’t call the wolves or ravensVultures, worms or creatures cravenThey tried to prayThey tried to feed itThey warned the weakWho tried to heed itThey built the tunnels to try and fight itThey tried to drown itThey wished to spite itBut it hid in the tunnels beneath the gravesFear turned servants into slavesFeasting upon the helpless deadKilling and eating the living insteadA brave girl went to beg a wordBut a corpse who talks back is absurdIt whispers high in ear beside herNever speak to the Hillside Hider
Kudos: 1





	Scopaesthesia

The room was windowless, with uneven brown floors, a small round table with three overly large black office chairs, one of which Jill was curled up in, glaring at the red brick outer wall and struggling not to cry. The drywall had been painted a soft grey, probably to make the room seem lighter, but the old yellow light fixture made the room seem murky, almost underwater. It was cold enough to be. Jill wondered for the hundredth time if this was the nicer interrogation room. He knew there was another one down the hall but he’d never been taken there and that one had a thick door with a deadbolt on the outside. His uneven breathing hung heavily in the air alongside the buzzing of his anxiety and pushed him further into the chair.

He was going to die here. In this stupid, fake office, and Dremarus would be angry.

The knock on the door cut off his thoughts.

“Jill Lafayette?” a mans voice came through the door.

Jill swiveled reluctantly and looked up at the foggy human head shape in the door’s window.

“Hi…” Jill said flatly, “Uh, are you the doctor?”

“Yes, I’m the doctor. May I come in?”

“Um, Okay.”

There was a jingle of what Jill knew were keys. _So he did lock me in._ The door opened and a man in his late 30’s with a trim brown beard and a blue button down shirt stepped inside. His left hand shook slightly from the weight of a large leather bag.

“Hi,” Jill said again.

“Hello, my name is Dr. Garret McCloud. Officer Dremarus requested I come have a look at you. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Jill muttered into the crook of his arm without rising.

Dr. Garret McCloud dropped his heavy bag on the table and sat across from Jill, sighing as he settled into the cold faux leather. His eyes were bruised, and his brown hair was streaked light to match.

“I see that you’re nervous, so I won’t conceal anything from you, Mr. Lafayette. I need to see if you’ve been bitten, scratched or in some other way injured. I need to know how much contact you had with…”

Jill’s head perked up and his timid posture seemed to spread out, taking up the entire chair and he gripped the arm rests.

“The what? The * _what*_? What was that? What the _*fuck*_ , was that _*thing*_?!” Jill cried, leaning forward, his bloodshot eyes, wet and wide.

Dr. McCloud drew into himself, but rested his gaze upon Jill anyway, “I don’t… I’m afraid I don’t know-”

“You said you wouldn’t hide anything! You said—”

“You’re right,” Dr. McCloud cut in, raising a steady hand to silence him, “You’re right, and I will. What I should have said was, ‘I’ll tell you what I know’.”

Jill sank back into his seat, wrapping his arms around his knees, watching the doctors hand settle back on the table over the heavy bag.

“Truthfully, I do not know what that thing is. But I’ll tell you what I do know,”

—

Crunch. Crunch. _Snap._ Crunch. The sound of lightly labored breathing interspersed with the unrealistically close crunching of leaves in the underbrush cut into the camera’s sensitive mic. Thick hiking boots broke into the shot, a blur of tan between the blackish greenery and brown rot because Jill had dropped his arm to the sides to worm his way through a thicket of trees.

“I- I’m wearing real boots today guys,” Jill whispered into his mic, struggling to keep the hand held camera steady as his legs were continually tangled and caught, “—Uh, really thick woods out here. And as you can see it’s, uh, kind of a hike to the spot we’re exploring today.” Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. — _Panting_ — Crunch… “Fuck, I’ll probably edit half of this out to be honest. Staring at the plants cannot be interesting for you all, huh?” He laughed gently to himself.

“So there’s not much online I can find about the, uh, the uh, town I live in. I still haven’t been able to get my lazy butt into the big library—” Jill placed his foot down right beside a bird and the camera view blurred violently as he jerked away from a tornado of vast beating wings. The animal writhed in the air for a moment before finding its arial balance and glided into the deep canopy. “Black vulture,” he murmured, unconsciously following its flightpath with the camera.

“Anyway the town I live in is called Cyprus End. I’ve been trying to find what that means, according to my sources which I'll list in the…descriptions below, Cyprus means fairness. I just find it a little weird that they would name a town, ‘the end of fairness’, but I dunno who named it. Maybe they were really grumpy.”

He tore his eyes away, leaning against the nearest tree and dropped the camera to his stomach, letting the the shoulder strap do its thing, as he shook out the printed map that he had shoved in his jacket pocket. According to the paper, he should be there shortly, it could just be a break in the thick trees up ahead. The plant life here didn’t seem quite as ancient, the untouched woods that spread coiling arms out against the sky the blocked the light on the ground seemed behind him now. The way forward was slightly brighter, the forest floor green with young life and tangled vines, a tell tail sign of previous human habitation. Or fire.

Jill didn’t want to admit to the mild relief he felt finally getting somewhere. Pressing on, he wondered at this hike, tough even for him, trudging through what seemed to be acres of thorny bushes planted to keep people out. But nature wasn’t normally friendly towards the bipedal when left unchecked. In a way it was good, it meant that there was virtually no chance of ferals hiding out there.

He paused pointing the viewfinder forward as he broke into the sunlight saying brightly, “Just a little ways left,” and the camera lens fell upon a small game trail leading forward. The soft crunching sounds beginning once more as he followed it. “When we get there, I might have to sit for a minute-Oh my God—” he gasped, mouth agape as he stared at the eyesore before him.

“This isn’t on my map,” he whispered, dropping the camera again and scouring the wrinkled paper for something he missed. Nothing. This was the exact spot where the old town was supposed to be, he’d been expecting the bones of houses, maybe crumbling wells, or even a nice spooky shop still stocked with wooden boxes and dusty jars.

Instead, there was a 20 foot wrought iron gate that looked like it belonged in front of a 19th century New Orleans mansion but was filled in with the criss cross steal of a modern schoolyard fence and topped very dramatically with a thick cloud of barbed wire. Jill blinked up at it, trying to comprehend the combination, and as his gaze shifted down he noticed where there had been holes, probably made with bolt cutters, that had been _soldered_ back together and then reinforced with a latticework of more barbed wire. At the very bottom of the fence was another off-putting combination; poured cement complete with partially exposed steal rods where there were not huge white stones used at the bases of the last century’s houses also cemented on top. “What the hell.” Jill murmured, grabbing his camera and exploring the image before him, “Seriously, what the hell is this? I’ve never… This isn’t on my map, guys. You think they are hiding velociraptors in there?” He tried to laugh but it came out forced.

“I know somebody’s gonna tell me it’s haunted, right?”

His interest shifted inside the gate and he drew forward, carful to lean his hands against what was not barbed wire. The viewfinder struggled to focus on the scene beyond and he found he couldn’t stand having his vision impaired at all. Even for the video. So he held the camera as steady as his hand would allow and stared forward.

It was beautiful and completely unlike the life of the forest surrounding, there was a distant sound of slow moving water and a chorus of flourishing frogs and insects. The trees were bursting out of small circular iron fences that had once caged them in and long roots pushed gravestones askew. There were mushrooms blossoming like massive flowers all over the mossy floor and lichens and epiphytes clung to both dead, and living bark. Many birds were singing just above him, drawing his attention and he noticed with some trepidation that not one of them landed near the floor. The camera watched with him as he mumbled, “None of the birds are less than ..15 feet? Maybe more. Above the ground. That’s weird.”

He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was bothering him. A sort of static was moving all over his skin as if he were too close to a glass chamber full of lightning. The air tasted alive on his tongue, off, like poisoned water. This huge iron gate stood beckoning him and yet telling him to run, he could have been standing in front of yellow police tape, knowing the desire to see the train crash was wrong yet unable to resist the curiosity.

“I’m goanna climb it,” he said to the camera, startling himself.

—

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Jill pounded on the door, tears streaming down his white face, further smearing the blood around his nose and mouth.

“Ark! P-Please! Ark!” he screamed, pounding once again, looking back and forth down the dark hallway of the apartment building. He cried against the door, holding his hand up once more before he heard a click and pushed himself backwards.

The door swung open and Jill stared. Ark’s strong and stable figure stood before him in the doorway.

“Jill?” he questioned hoarsely, tiredness grasping at his words and coloring his face.

Jill quivered and began whimpering, unable to form words, desperate to not feel afraid. He reached out to Ark, silently begging him for comfort.

“Jill? What is wrong?” Ark asked, reaching back jerkily in response. Jill rushed in closer and grabbed him around the waist and clinging as hard as his shivering arms would allow. Ark grunted in confusion, and for a moment, stood stock still before putting one warm and one cold arm around him. Jill gasped and cried all the harder.

“What happened?” Ark asked once more after he’d coaxed Jill into the apartment and onto the overstuffed green couch. Jill was now shuddering under one of Ark’s spare blankets, with a wet towel in his hands.

“I-I-I made a bad mistake,” he struggled, feeling the exhausted pounding of his chest, and unable to breath any way but through his dry open mouth.

Ark was sitting across from him on a matching green lounge chair, a severe look in his eyes. He didn’t press, just listened to the sound of painful breathing slow and start again as Jill fought to bring himself together.

“I’m sorry, Ark. I’m so sorry,” he whimpered.

“It’s going to be alright, Jill.”

Jill searched Ark’s face, watched his stillness, and began to feel the floor beneath his feet again.

“I…was out doing one of my videos, you know.”

Ark nodded encouragingly. Jill knew he would probably get an earful from the officer later about getting himself into danger.

“I learned in school that there was another, uhm, another town called Cyprus End. The library was having one of those ‘theme of the month’ things and they put out all this old information about the town, and when I…When I was reading through a book I found a map that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t the map of our town at all. So I spent the week comparing it to google earth and trying to overlay it on a current map. Then I saw what looked like a town way off to the west of us.”

Ark folded his hands over his knees and nodded at the floor.

“So-You, you know about it then?” Jill cried in a high voice.

Ark sighed and leaned back against the chair for a moment before saying, “Are you about to tell me you broke into the fence?”

Jill bent over as a wave of fresh terror broke over him and tears began pouring once more. Ark shot over and sat beside him, putting a strong hand on his shoulder, but saying nothing. Jill covered his face with the wet towel for a moment, breathing in cold watery air before shuttering to swallow his crying.

“Yeah, I got in. I got in and I saw * _It_ *. I just wanted to look at the buildings. Oh my god, I didn’t know, I didn’t know,” he moaned and made himself look up at Ark.

“I don’t know if it touched me.”

The color had already drained from the officers face, only now Jill was able to see the tense muscles around Ark’s jaw where his skin touched the metal.

“We need to take you in and get you looked at.”

“I think I got a picture of it, Ark,” Jill moaned, gesturing at the camera on the table.

—

Jill strapped everything to his back except for his camera which was still hung around his neck in case he needed to get a quick shot. He had put his thick construction gloves on and hopped up over the bricks to hop onto the fence. It was stiff and sturdy but he was careful anyway, checking for barbs and broken metal the entire way up. At the very top he reached behind his back into the open backpack and pulled out a thick wool cloth, throwing it over the thick tumbleweed of prison standard barbed wire, so he could thrust himself over the top. He sat on the bricks on the inside so that he could readjust his supplies and close his backpack again before stepping out. The ground squelched beneath him unexpectedly and he slid several feet forward before balancing himself on a large grey stone.

“Dang it,” he said to the camera, lining his eyes up to the camera’s screen. “It’s really wet in here, maybe there’s a creek.” A mosquito buzzed angrily beside him and Jill swatted it away. “Or maybe a swamp, er, a marsh I mean.” he tilted his camera towards the stone he had rested on and gasped sharply. Due to sinking and a heavy growth of moss he had not noticed the words. They read:

Aster L. Fish

Born 1789

Died 1801

The Lord Did Not See Us

Jill yanked himself back as if he had been shocked, his chest vibrating with panic.

“Ah, ah, oh…” He read the epitaph through the camera and audibly swallowed. “That’s creepy. I’m sorry Miss Aster,” he whispered, “1789 was probably not an easy time for anyone here—what’s that?”

The candles on top the tombstone did not speak to answer his question. Obviously used candles, ivory wax running down the faded mossy name of poor forgotten Miss Aster. As his gaze traveled over the rotting stone down to the leaf strewn ground and saw even more. They were sitting on top of the leaves. Dirt and mold climbed the inward slope around burnt wicks, hot summers had melted some into debris filled wax blobs.

Jill looked back up, gradually becoming aware of the tombstones all around him, slowly being swallowed by nature, each with its own candles, every single one. The hair on his arms stood straight.

“For the record, if there are any ghosts listening,” Jill said, still searching the outlines of headstones with his camera, “I didn’t mean to disturb anyone or stand on a grave. I’ll try not to stand on any graves.”

He stepped around several as he braved further in, slipping and sliding in the thick dark mud and undergrowth. “Okay so, as I was saying earlier, I haven’t managed to get to the public library. But I did hang out at the one at my school for like 8 hours so that’s gotta count for something.”

“Turns out that Cyprus End is technically Cyprus End the 2nd. When the city was first built by trappers in the 1700’s they settled over here—” He panned the camera around the thick weeds and twisted trees, “This must be the old graveyard, it’s always sad to me when graveyards are abandoned like this. But there are candles here so maybe somebody comes out to see them.” He stopped his camera on another tombstone, so broken that he only knew what it was because of where it was sitting. Even as he took a gentle step forward, the mud took a gulp that pulled it slowly downward. Jill stopped in his tracks, eyes widening as the mud slowly began to cave in, opening a gaping maw with a great squelching and swallowed the tombstone whole. The tree just beside creaked tiredly and Jill jumped backwards.

“Oh God, a quagmire,”

Jill trembled and leaned against a tombstone, aiming the camera to watch the shifting mud pulling at the quavering tree. He glanced at the sturdy granite headstone.

I Do Not Lie Here

Born 1791

Died 1808

Do Not Weep

God Forgive Me

“No way,”

He glanced back as the tree finally stopped it’s sinking and slowly shifted the camera to the new headstone.

“Well… Maybe this place was abandoned because of the quagmires. They are.. uhm.. very dangerous. Does anyone know what this means? ‘I do not lie here’? Is that like, my soul is gone?”

Jill didn’t stay to muse on the thought for long though, he got up and slowly walked between the trees and gravestones, careful to have one hand on a solid object at all times and to walk gently. Images of forgotten bodies being sucked down into the soil were playing in his head. This place could be a biohazard.

He had been right when he’d first thought it was a marsh and soon the loud buzzing of mosquitoes and wild song lead him to water. It was just barely moving under a sheet of greenish moss and smelled of peat and rot. He coughed and sent three alarmed dragonflies soaring away. Why on Earth had people settled here in the first place?

The water gurgled and let up a stream of bubbles, which Jill eyed suspiciously before turning away, heading a new direction. Picturing old houses, he enticed himself onward. If he found any architecture that was pre-1800, it would be the oldest he’d seen in all his exploring. Trudging over progressively sturdier ground, between thorny vines and around thick trees, he walked, only stopping to put new batteries in his camera and check his map.

Soon the trees fell away and the earth beneath his feet felt solid as he walked across broken remnants of a stone walkway. Some dry weeds and brown grass struggled to break through the nearly powdered stone. A sagging archway stood intact between two weeping willows.

“Do you see that?” he asked the with his lips almost against the side of the camera as if whispering into an ear. Jill moved closer slowly, putting one foot down at a time. A loud snapping made him jump, and cover his mouth with his hand to prevent a scream. His eyes snapped shut as he focused on breathing. Static buzzed beneath his feet. As his breathing came back under control he let out a soft sigh and looked down at the twig he had snapped.

Only, it wasn’t a twig. It was a half exposed rib bone. He bent down to look at it, observing where the print of his boots had connected with the brittle bone. It looked very old. Jill pulled a bandana from the inner pocket of his jacket and used it to pick up the bone.

“I’m.. No expert, it looks human to me but it could be… coyote. Or maybe a really small cow? A baby cow…”

A wave of dizziness smashed into him so hard that he braced himself against his knees and gagged. The intensity took his breath away before his mind could really catch up. Acrid. It was a smell that seemed to have floated over to him while he crouched; one that made his eyes water, his lips shutter and his ears ring. He coughed for a moment before dropping the bone and using the bandana to cover his mouth and nose.

Slowly, he stood. He had to see. He had to see what was making this smell. He walked forward, lost in the purity of his curiosity, and he was silent. The point of this adventure had faded away, the camera still in hand was forgotten. His hand tightened the fabric over his face as he circled the trees to see the architecture more clearly.

Jill gasped inward sharply and then turned to vomit as the rancid smell overtook him again. He hissed and gasped as he threw up the content of his stomach and more before regaining composure and staggering backwards.

A man was hanging, not from either of the beautiful willow trees, but from the mouth of the archway. Jill realized he was still holding the camera and turned it toward the ground.

“Oh my God,” he groaned, looking over the poor soul.

The man, or at least he thought it was a man by the size and shape of his blood soaked blue jeans, was hanging by his torso. There was a rope around his middle that was still dangling him several feet above the ground, so he swayed gently, mouth open in a silent scream, eyes black and crawling with insects. His legs were mangled, as if something had started to eat him from the bottom up and he had defecated at some point, if the stains told any story at all.

“I-” Jill gagged, “I’m so sorry,” he stood for a moment in silent mourning for this stranger. Nose running, eyes watering and stomach clenching from that malodor.

**_so sorry. sorry. sorry._ **

Every muscle in his body petrified.

The birds here were quiet.

Crickets chirped meekly, as if afraid to be heard.

Only the wind was brave enough to hum as it slithered through the branches, ran cold fingers over the corpse and shook Jill’s clothes to awaken him before fading away. Through the thickening silence Jill heard a something that at first he could not believe.

_It’s the wind._ His addled mind supplied.

“No, it can’t be,” He mouthed without sounding the words. His heightened senses lead his eyes to the blackened depths beyond the dead man into the arch. He could tell it was a staircase but had no intention of finding out to where. The bloody handprints along the outer wall where people had obviously been trying to hold on told him that was for the best.

**_sorry. so sorry. sorry_ ** _._

_It’s the dead man._ Jill looked back at the corpse. That didn’t make sense though, not because the man was dead but because he had heard the voice to his right. Jill pulled the camera back up, aiming it around as he looked.

“Hello?” He called out weakly, “is.. is someone there?” and immediately wished he hadn’t.

**_Hello Hello_** was the echoing answer, in a high childish voice. **_Hello Hello_** The voice was to his right, somewhere beyond the trees.

Terror swept low through his abdomen and spiked icily up his spine. He trusted his instincts. This was wrong, terribly wrong, he needed to leave. Get out of here now. Jill held his breath until he felt dizzy and let it out slowly and silently, steadying himself as he took one backward step.

**_Hello Hello_** the echo cried out, this time from his left and Jill clutched his own arms, digging his nails into his biceps and willing himself to be quiet. How? How had it moved so fast?

_It doesn’t matter. Get out._ The voice in his head commanded. Jill took another step backwards, the fence, somewhere behind him may as well have been 100 miles away. His eyes were open so wide they were watering with the strain, trying to find it, to get away. A twig snapped to the right of him and Jill bit his lip. Hard. Stifling the cry of fear begging to escape him and almost falling as he willed his aching legs backwards once again.

A few more tense steps.

Just a few more.

Just a few-

His back hit something solid and he bit down hard, tasting copper and feeling wet heat flow out over his chin. Before he could think to stop himself he turned around to face a large tree. Exposed ribs poked through the bark about 3 feet above him, clutching a nest where the stomach would be. Jill leaned against its moist bark for a moment, listening, trying to breath without making a sound.

**_Hello Hello_** the echo echoed again, to the right of him once more. Jill’s eyes searched the trees and the ground— **_Maybe this place …abandoned very dangerous._** It said in a high voice. Jill cried silently, still staring out into nothing.

Then he noticed it.

**_I do not lie here._ **

The ground was shifting slightly beneath the trees and dusty stone just feet in front of him.

**_I lie here._** It corrected, somewhere off to the left again. Jill held his breath, watching a tree shift as if it was being yanked on from underneath. _The quagmire?_ He wondered through the paralytic terror. His eyes focused on a hole beneath one of the trees roots and saw something horrible.

——

“Nobody knows,” The doctor had told him quietly, “What that monster is. But contact with it sometimes spreads a contagion known as, Infei-Virus. It is thought that Infei and Fera are related.”

Jill’s stomach had sunk horribly. He hadn’t really needed any more explanation of how deadly this thing was. How close he was to death.

Currently, Dr. McCloud was unpacking his bags and Jill was struggling to take off his clothes, finding them a stiff and fiddly enemy to his shaking hands. He had been asked to take them off and put on a white gown so that the doctor could make sure he hadn’t been contaminated in any way. And he was to be given a collection of various injections; all of which sounded welcome at the moment. The sense of being dirty, tainted, of possibly being a threat to people he cared about, was weighing on him. 

“Alright, ready?” the doctor asked softly as Jill kicked the last article of clothing into a pile beside the wall.

“Yeah,” he whispered, grasping his left wrist with his right hand as McCloud came over, already masked and gloved. Jill focused on the light switch across the room, so that he didn’t have to make awkward eye contact or reveal his fearful guilt.

“Uh, A-are we going to burn the clothes and stuff?”

McCloud was gently looking over his shoulder blades, taking inventory of every cut.

“Yes, they will be taken away as a biohazard and you will have to take a post exposure shower.”

“Hmm,” somewhere off in the distant part of his mind that still lived in his regular life he was grateful he didn’t wear clothes he liked. But the rest of his mind didn’t feel it mattered. “Ouch!” He hissed in surprise.

“I’m sorry, this one might need stitches. Do you have a Tdap shot?”

“Uh, I dunno. What’s Dtap?”

“Tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough.”

“I think I got one from my church when I was a kid. We got all the shots from them.”

“Good. I think you need a booster.”

“For tetanus? You’re worried I might get tetanus? What about.. that thing?”

“I understand that you didn’t initially think you were bitten or scratched, but that you ran into a lot of barbed wire. Is that correct?”

“Yeah? But—”

“I do not see any outward signs of any bites yet, it’s very likely that you haven’t been bitten or scratched. You were just exposed to a lot of rusty metal.”

Jill felt the world tilt sideways, realizing, suddenly, that there was just a shred of sunlight in the room and that the doctor who was now inspecting his legs smelled like aftershave.

“Really?” he asked, voice breaking over the trepidation of feeling relief.

“Really.” the doctor answered, walking to the front of him and inspecting his chest, “You don’t feel any pain, do you?”

“I just feel gross and like I have lots of scrapes and stuff.”

“Good, that’s good. Where does it hurt the most?”

“Uh.." he unconsciously ran a hand over his head and winced. “I bit my lip and I got a cut on my head.”

“Okay,” he said, standing up straight toinspect his lip and then part his hair to look over his scalp. “Yeah, that’s going to need stitches. But it has all the marks of being cut by metal. It doesn’t look like scratches or a bite to me. Still, I will run a few tests, swab the wounds and take a few photos before I give you your shots and have you take that shower.”

“Okay,” Jill said, feeling the cold of the floor beneath his bare feet and craving the unopened soda that was waiting for him at the table.

Soon Jill was back in his chair, alone and locked in, both arms very sore and legs cold from the lack of clothes, but hoping the tests would come back soon. Come back soon and be good.

——

“You got close enough to get a picture of it?” Ark asked grimly.

Jill nodded tearfully, “I-I mean, it got close enough to me for me to get a picture of it.”

His shaking hands brought the towel back up to his face, trying to clean off his sweat slickened skin. When he pulled the fabric away he saw a lot of blood. He was coming down from his mental flight and was so tired at this point that he didn’t do anything but stare at it.

“Do you feel that you’re up to going to the station?” Ark asked gently.

Jill’s shouldered slackened and he sniffed, face still in the towel, trying to swallow down more tears. He knew he didn’t really have a choice.

“Ark?”

“Yes?”

“If that thing cut me up…Am I going to die?”

The pause made Jill look up at Ark again, who was lost in thought, tapping his fingers against his knees. Finally he met Jill’s gaze, with his own steely white-eyed expression, getting up off his chair and kneeling in front of Jill. Jills eyes watered before he could stop them and he grasped at Ark’s hand when he offered it.

“I don’t know.”

He choked down a sob.

“But I am hoping that these are all just cuts and scrapes, and that you will be fine,” he said calmly and Jill squeezed his hand, “And if… that is not the case. I won’t leave you. I will be beside you the whole time.”

Jill blindly reached out for Ark as he had in the doorway, nearly bashing his head into the metal of Ark’s shoulder, but Ark stopped him and put his arms around the trembling teenager once again.

The moon disappeared behind a haze of rain as they exited the apartment building together half an hour later. Jill followed quietly, hiccuping through the sounds of wet pavement as he climbed into the front seat of Ark’s black sedan with a soda clutched between his fingers.

Jill leaned his head against the window, but was unable to look outside, the sight of trees was too much for him. A sullen calmness had started to overtake him. He was no stranger to death, but still managed to feel afraid as the officer pulled out onto the road.

——

Rocks and dust gently shifted around a small hole in the ground as long blackened joints appeared, shifting just aside as the spidery digits spread out. One, three, five, seven, Jill could see, seven broken multi-jointed fingers breaking through the earth. The hand, attached to a too-thin, mangy arm, reached out across the ground at Jills feet.

**_Hello Hello_** the voice called out again, in a sing-song attempt at sounding enticing. The smell hit him again, blinding him for a moment before he remembered he had the bandana and covered his nose and mouth once more. He leaned hard against the tree, struggling not to breath as the hand slowly drew closer. The hand stroked the bare ground to the left of him and Jill willed himself to step quietly around the opposite side of the tree. The hand froze the moment he took one step back and he bit his already bloody lip, terrified that it had felt the vibration of movement in the ground, but just as he had thought that the hand shot out against the tree, scraping the long blackened fingernails of a dead plague victim horribly over the bark exactly where he had been a moment before.

Jill dared to step back once again, eyeing the disembodied arm as it pushed itself endlessly from the small hole into hell. He was so scared to stay, it was stupid to stay, but he was afraid that if he lost sight of it he would die. He managed a few feet backwards before the arm bent strangely, sagging as if in disappointment and slithered back into the hole. He glanced to the left and right of himself and stepped quietly behind another tree. As he did so, his camera bumped off the side of the bark, making a small crunching noise and he grabbed it, clutching it to his chest while grinding his teeth.

Dust shot out of the mouth of the small hole, like a fit of coughing, the dirt flung itself aside until the hole was about the size of a basketball.

The camera was still on, the little green light above the digital screen told him so. Jill held up the camera slowly then, his heart hammering blood away from his fingers and limbs. The dust stopped flying and began to settle around the hole, clearing the air around the darkness as a strange rumbling sounded from inside it. One large, circular eye peered out towards the outside world. He clenched the camera all the harder, trying to hold in the crushing fear trying to force the air from his lungs.

**_Hello…_ **

Jill moaned into his bandana covered hand.

The eye disappeared and there was silence.

He looked back and forth for a few moments, checking the ground for movement, where had it gone? Where? There was nothing to let him know now and it had stopped speaking. Jill stepped back from the tree, walking backwards gently, one foot at a time.

After what seemed like hours, the crickets began to chirp once more, and birds swooped overhead. Jill groaned and finally turned around to look at where he was. About 20 feet from the fence and about 40 from the part of the fence where he’d left the wool cloth. It seemed to be 400 miles.

He stood for a moment, trying to calm his breathing as he sternly told himself to head for the cloth. It was gone. There was no reason to—

A high piercing scream ripped through the air like a lightning strike.

The earth around his feet vibrated with the pitch of it.

So horrifically human, as if crying out in pain.

Jill fell to his knees as if somebody had hit a metal bucket that was over his head, the world spinning out of shape. His body turned without asking permission, in the direction of the archway. The corpse stared out at him, standing— floating— under the arch, neck broken to the side, silently screaming for him to run.

It was holding him there. The corpses head was yanked backwards. It was… It was eating it.

“Oh my god,” Jill moaned and then slammed his hands over his mouth, dropping his camera on its strap again.

The corpse dropped to the ground stiffly, and crunched unceremoniously. There in the darkness, just beyond his scope of vision something slightly darker than the darkness crouched.

Realizing all at once what was about to happen, Jill found himself flying to his feet and jumped into the thorny vines right behind him, hearing that terrible scream once again. The plants ripping into his clothes and numb skin as he sprinted. Falling every ten feet or so as he tripped over fallen branches and vines. He could hear the eye watering scream in the distance and it was coming. Fast.

With strength he didn’t know he possessed he launched himself onto the gate and climbed to the top within seconds, throwing himself through that barbed wire cloud without a second thought before throwing himself down the other side. He hit the hard ground with a thud, his camera smacking into his arm, but felt nothing.

It screamed once again, closer, and Jill screamed louder than he knew was possible in response. The scream mixed with the creaking and squelching of something huge smashing its body into the fence.

He didn’t look and he didn’t stop running. His calves burned, his eyes blurred but he ran on. It had taken him 50 minutes to get here and it took him 20 to get back through the thick forest, toward the familiar hiking path.

——

The knock on the door startled him. Bad. He screamed, fell off the chair and gagged, though there was nothing left to throw up. The door flew open as Dr. McCloud and Ark rushed in.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” McCloud told him, kneeling to help him sit up.

Ark grasped Jill’s upper arm and Jill fell back on him, gasping painfully.

“Jill,” Ark said, drawing Jill’s attention,

“I’m sorry, Ark. I feel sick. I fell asleep.”

“I know, it’s been hours,” he said gently.

“Hours? But- But what—”

McCloud cut in quickly, “Your tests came back all negative. You can take that shower now,I’ll give you those stitches, some antibiotics and you can go home. You’ll need to come back in for a few weeks to get boosters, but you are going to be okay.”

Jill stared at the doctor, and burst into laughter, turning himself around to fall against Ark for the third time in this horrible 48 hours.

——

He could see everything, his eyes did not dare to blink, blown out and open wider than he’d ever managed before, they absorbed the light of the moon and told him of every twig and vine on the ground. His ears seemed to be reaching out to limits far beyond his scope and although he couldn’t even see the road lights he could hear cars driving by in the distance. He could not feel his extremities or his face, his fingers were needles, his skin frozen and yet covered in sweat.

Jill sprinted through the last of the trees, ghosts hot on his heels, screaming out unfiltered terror as he ran out into the road. He was flying, and he’d always imagined flying to be a beautiful and pleasant sensation but he found the airy weightless feeling to be sickening.

His body stopped without him, in the center of the two lane road, staring at the street lights as if they were the merciful eyes of God. He had run miles all the way back to his apartment. His truck forgotten in a far away lot. A van passed him in a wide swerve as if he might jump on them. He couldn’t bring himself to care, looking down again at his bloody, ripped clothes and seeing red blossoming over his sleeves and running down his numb fingers.

“Go,” he yelled at his own feet before dragging himself forward and stumbling into the side door. It took him a moment to fiddle with the door, but it was unlocked and with one last compulsive glance at the outside he shut the door and locked it. Running one last time, up the stairs, to the only place he felt safe.


End file.
